A Case for Face Masks
Photo by 🇨🇭 Claudio Schwarz | @purzlbaum on Unsplash
Two questions were foremost in my mind as I walked up and down the aisles of Whole Foods yesterday: 1) Are the black lentils back in stock? 2) How many of my fellow shoppers — so many of them unmasked — will have to go through what I’m going through?
I’ve been sick from Covid-19 for sixteen weeks now. Seventeen weeks ago, I said things like, “I’m not worried for myself, but I really wouldn’t want to spread the virus to anyone older or immunocompromised.” Fifteen weeks ago, I stocked up on groceries and prepared to hunker down, to flatten the curve. If you’re paying attention to the weeks, then you’ve spotted the problem. Yes, as I made my final grocery runs in mid-March, I was already sick with Covid-19, though I didn’t know it. Like many others, I experienced a brief pause in my symptoms and thought I had recovered from whatever trifling respiratory virus I’d had.
I was wrong. I’ll never know what consequences that may have had for others. I wish I could undo every one of my unmasked exhalations. For me, the consequences of Covid-19 have been significant, ongoing, life-changing.
So as I walked through Whole Foods, I wanted to grab my unmasked fellow shoppers by the shoulders, gaze imploringly into their eyes, and say, “Please, protect yourself and others. Being young does not shield you from this!” But there’s no good way to grab shoulders while maintaining six feet of distance, and dumping your recent medical history on unsuspecting strangers is frowned upon.
You are not unsuspecting, though. You already have an idea of what this article is about, so allow me to dump the full range of symptoms that I’m still experiencing — sometimes as mild annoyances, sometimes as debilitating demons. In alphabetical order: back pain, brain fog, burning lungs, chest pain, chest tightness, difficulty concentrating, difficulty focusing my eyes, difficulty staying asleep, dizziness, ear pain, ear popping, excessive yawning, exercise intolerance, extreme thirst, fatigue, headache, heart palpitations, loss of coordination (bumping into things, etc.) malaise, muscle pain, nausea, rash, ringing in ears, shortness of breath, short-term memory issues, sinusitis, sore throat, tachycardia (rapid heartbeat), tingling/numbness in limbs, unsteady gait, and white fingers and toes. Those are just the symptoms that I still have. A month ago, the list was longer.
I’m experiencing all of this, but I am comparatively lucky. I am alive! What’s more, I am well enough to spend most of the day out of my bed now, which isn’t true of all Covid-19 long-haulers and wasn’t true of me a couple months ago. What makes me really lucky, though, is that I have support. When I need to be in bed, I almost always have that option. I don’t have to earn a living. For now, I’m a stay-at-home mom, and a babysitter has recently started helping out so that I can rest. If you don’t enjoy that degree of luxury, I highly recommend that you not get this virus.
That’s the rub, though, isn’t it? Most people don’t enjoy that degree of luxury. Most people have to work, and if that work takes them out of their home, it puts them at risk. If the thought of a wage-worker getting sick, becoming disabled, and losing their job prompts even a twinge of sympathy in you, I suggest that you not risk spreading this virus either.
I wouldn’t be able to work a full-time job now. Even most part-time jobs would be too much for me. Long-haul Covid-19 is not the sort of illness that you can push your way through. Each push is followed by a crash. The more you push, the more you crash, and those crashes can get seriously scary. This is true for me, and it seems to be true for nearly everyone that I encounter in Covid-19 support groups.
There are thousands of us who are in our twenties, thirties, and forties and are now wondering whether we will ever fully recover from Covid-19. Most of us did not worry about getting sick. We were young, fit, healthy. Now we live in bodies that feel decades older than they look. We live the questions that our doctors can’t answer and live the answers to questions that researchers haven’t yet thought to ask. Every now and then, we summon the energy to do something really audacious — like go to Whole Foods.
I knew that the extra errand might be too much for my body. I had just come from a cardiology appointment, and I also needed to go to Sam’s Club. This would be hands-down my most monumental day of erranding in fifteen weeks. It was too much for my body. I’ve been stuck in bed or on the couch most of the time in the 24 hours that have followed. For a go-getter and athlete, this is inconvenient and uncomfortable.
Maybe that’s why my fellow shoppers didn’t wear masks? Because masks are inconvenient and uncomfortable? They are right. Masks are inconvenient and uncomfortable. They take a while to get used to, and even then, they are never fun to wear. Guess what else isn’t fun. Being sick for nearly four months. Wondering if or when you will be well. Having to ask for help to take care of your own children. Knowing that you are unable to hold down a job. Death is only one of the tragic outcomes of Covid-19.
When you choose to wear a mask — discomfort be damned — you choose to keep yourself and others safer. You choose to lower the risk of death, disability, and long-term illness, as well as the financial, emotional, and interpersonal hardship that these bring. Many of the grocery store employees who get breathed on all day have children at home who depend on them. It is no cakewalk to be the child of a bedridden parent, especially if there is no money to pay for food. Were my unmasked shopping pals thinking about any of this?
I was thinking about it. I walked up and down the aisles, and instead of being dazzled by the selection of fresh produce (angelcots!), bulk foods (black lentils!), and craft beer (a coffee porter!), I felt weighed down by sadness. How many more people have to suffer what I’m suffering or worse? How close does it have to hit to home before we are willing to be uncomfortable and inconvenienced?
A mask offers less protection to the wearer than to the people around her, and so when you put one on, you send a message to everyone around you that their well-being matters to you. And their well-being should matter to you. We are all connected, after all. We are more alike than different. And we all suffer under the same general affliction: mortality.
We don’t just need this or that person to wear a mask. We all need to do it. We need to work together to build a culture of caring for one another across racial, economic, and party lines. For this brief moment, that means we need a culture of mask wearing — a culture in which walking into a store without a mask is even less acceptable than walking in without a shirt and shoes. Why? Well, to save lives, obviously. But also to preserve our freedom, and freedom isn’t free. We make short-term sacrifices in exchange for greater long-term benefits all the time. That’s all this is.
When I hear the word ‘freedom’ now, do you know what I think of? I imagine being able to take my kids for a hike. I imagine being able to drive with them to the beach. I imagine being able to go for a run. Many have complained that these freedoms have been taken from them because trails and parks and beaches were closed for a time. Consider the alternative: living in a body for whom those options are always closed. Imagine being physically unable to hike, drive, or run. Far worse, imagine being physically unable to work or care for your children. There’s no treatment for long-haulers right now. But there is an effective and commonsense method of prevention: Masks.
Please, put the damn thing on.